The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-07-19
A MOTHERS CRIME.
Tho Strange Way in Which a Tramp
Saved a Baby's Life.
From, the Manchester Times.

From the Manchester Times.
Many cases are known in when thTu
party has been mysteIiously influenced 70
do something-often against both reason
and interest-whch has resulted in the de-
lection of crime. A young unmarried
woman, living in good situation with an
Oxfordshire farmer, mad with her her child,
boy of 2l5 years old. This lncumbrance
standing in the way of her being mar1led,
she made up her mind to rid herself OF IL.
Obtaining a holiday she left the farm with
her boy, giving out that she was about 10
visit a relative some miles off, Next day
she returned, and stated that she had
left the child to be brought up by her
cousin. The statement was naturally be-
lieved.
On the following afternoon two men were
at work harvesting in a field on the next
farm to where the mother was employed.
One of them was laborer, or tramp,
and inquired of his companion the best
way to get to the place where he had
taken lodgings. The best way was told nm,
and he was further instructed that when he
reached a small coppice he was not to go
through, but round it, otherwise he might
fall down an unprotected old dry well. All
the remainder of that day the thought OF
this well worried the tramp; he
felt all intense and unaccountable
uteu6 10 see lUt anu 81 dlhooCiJ
solicited the man working with him to ac-
company him to see it that the other agreed
to do so. When they arrived at the cop
piCe and found The well both were afraid to
stand on the edge and look down, and lay
down to do so. Presently one threw down
a stone, when, instead of hearing the sound
of its fall, they heard a cry. Another
stone was dropped with the same result
Certain that something alive was at the bot
fbaU tn
farm house and returned with more men,
lantern, and ropes.
A plucky lad volunteered to go down,
and was lowered, the rope around his waist,
the lantern tied to his wrist. He found
at the bottom, 120 feet from the sur
face, lying between four pointed perpendic-
ular stakes-on either of which a man
might have been impaled-a living, bleeding,
and sobbing baby boy, which when brought
to the surface, was at once recognized as the
child of the girl at the adjacent farm. The
mother after conviction, when she was asked
how, she got the child down the well without
killing it instantly, replied that she had not
the heart to throw the boy down, she pro
cured a long cord, doubled it under the child'S
body, and when it reached the bottom let go
of one end and drew the cord up by the
other The amount of heart possessed by
mother who could leave her offspring to
slowly perish of starvation in preference to
Staying it outright must be very small both
in quantity and quality, The poor innocent
was thirty-siX hours without food and in
pitchy darkness, and was so cruelty cut,
scratched and bruised that he still bore the
marks weeks afterwards, when at the trial
he was stripped and placed on the table to
show them. And had his inhuman mother
any heart in her composition she must have
felt cut to the very core then, when the
poor little fellow put out his arms and cried
to go to her The death sentence was re
corded against her, but committed to penal
servitude for life.